


Who Watches Fading Feathers Fall

by leathansparrow



Category: D.Gray-man
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Threesome - M/M/M, spoilers - chapter 212
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-15
Updated: 2012-02-15
Packaged: 2017-10-31 05:01:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/340208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leathansparrow/pseuds/leathansparrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Link has been watching and watching for so long.  For him, he decides, it's time to act.  Kanda has never meant to watch, and has anyway.  Now Allen is here, between them, and they're the only ones still close enough to bring him home. </p><p>Spoilers up to chapter 212.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Who Watches Fading Feathers Fall

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter 213 will probably joss this whole thing, but still: spoilers for chapter 212.

Link has spent more time watching Allen Walker than he has anyone else. He supposes he should consider it inappropriate, but it’s his job to watch Allen, and thus he can’t. Allen is strange, dangerous, even he can see that and at first his professional integrity is kept perfectly safe from Allen’s serene charm.

 _I’m fine, just hurry._ Hidden and left behind, broken in the hall and still smiling. Link has been watching for so long, but in that moment, as he picks a wounded Allen Walker up from the cold stone of the shattered Headquarters floor, he realizes that perhaps he isn’t as immune as he thought.

It’s not his job to be sympathetic. It isn’t his job to care. If and when the time comes he knows he’ll have to kill Allen, or do anything in his power to try. He sees hints and slips of the creature lurking under Allen’s skin, the dark thing growing in his head and waiting in the shadows to devour him. He isn’t the only one who sees it.

In the broken ruins he sees a smile, hears a quiet ‘good morning’ in a voice that is Allen’s, but not. He sees Kanda Yuu freeze.

And then he isn’t the only one watching. Not anymore. It isn’t just watching, because that thing hiding inside of Allen isn’t just an idea anymore, it’s real. It’s real and it’s tainting a boy he realizes that he cares for more than he should. He should tell Lvellie. He isn’t sure he can stay objective anymore. Something about Allen Walker has gotten under his skin.

He isn’t there for the second time. He’s just too late, just in time to stop Allen, before he brings Tewaku’s visions to life. He thinks he’s saving Tokusa. He thinks he’s saving his family, his brother, and he’s wrong. In the end he’s wrong and Allen pays for it. They all pay for it.

Kanda Yuu is lost to them and for the first time, the first real time (because he’s considered it before, but never like this), he thinks that the Order is wrong. They’ve lost his brothers and sisters (of his heart if not his blood), they’ve lost an Exorcist that could have been saved. They’ve bloodied their hands and the one paying for it is bound and fading in a cell beneath the castle’s cold stone.

He hears Allen isn’t eating. Isn’t eating, how could he not be eating? He’s watched Allen Walker long enough to know that can’t be true.

When he finds that it is true, the rage he feels crawls under his skin and won’t leave him alone. That boy, letting himself fade when they need him strong, it’s wrong. The Order is letting him fade, and it’s wrong. Who gives a damn about the monster in his head? The Order has already betrayed Link’s own, and now he realizes it isn’t just the Third Exorcists, not just his brothers and sisters, but Allen as well. Somehow Allen has crawled under his skin with everything else and become more than just an assignment.

Somehow he knows that if Allen fails and the Fourteenth wins, it’s all over.

So he fights. He fights Allen’s despair the best way he knows how, brings him food and chides him until he eats it. Then, when that monster in white comes, he fights for real. He bites back the horror, the excruciating pain, and fights. Lvellie wouldn’t approve, he wouldn’t have called for this, but Link fights anyway. He fights and he falls and when he wakes Allen is gone, declared a traitor and there’s nothing he can do.

He’s dead. What can he do?

“What you’ve always done,” Lvellie says, before he sends him away. “Watch him. Find him. Make sure it doesn’t win.”

Link wonders if Allen hasn’t wormed his way under Lvellie’s skin too, just a little. 

\-----

Link has spent his time watching Allen, and in that time he realizes he hasn’t been watching enough. He’s seen the others, Allen’s companions, and how they care for him, but he hasn’t seen this.

Kanda Yuu waltzes into his mission, not only that but beats him to it, that man Johnny at his side and a rare smile on his face. Link is at a loss. He finds Allen performing in the streets just as Kanda does, hides himself and watches their reunion from the shadows. He doesn’t know what passed between them. In his experience Kanda Yuu hates Allen Walker with a passion just short of brilliant. Now he sees Kanda’s fury, but it’s not hate behind it, he thinks. Kanda pulls Allen down, cleans the paint from his face and brings Allen Walker back to life. He says something Link does not hear over the crowd, but Link sees Allen’s face go white. He hears Allen yell, the pain in his voice.

Allen yells over the fight: “When did Link die?”

Link has the briefest moment of shock, the briefest swell of emotion, and then Allen is gone in a flood of akuma and death.

Link doesn’t have time to think. The akuma return and Allen flees. Kanda flees after him, cutting a swath of destruction in his path. Link wonders, as he follows, why Kanda is here. Nothing he’s seen suggests any sentimentality between them. More than that, Kanda escaped the Order once, and now here he is wielding Mugen again, and an exorcist’s coat hidden under his clothes. Why in Heaven’s name, after all the Order has done to him, would he return?

He doesn’t have time to wonder. By the time he finds them again it is dark and he’s tired and lost. Kanda steps out of an inn on the outskirts of town, sword over his shoulder and a dangerous glint in his eye.

“Well, how long have you been stalking us for?” Kanda asks the shadows. Link lifts his weary head and slides from them. “Lvellie’s dog.”

It was something he took pride in once, Link thinks. He still does, only not quite in the same way. Kanda has no reason to see Lvellie the way he does, and it isn’t relevant to them now.

“Does it matter?” he asks Kanda. “I’m here for the same reason as you.”

He doesn’t realize how right he is until Kanda takes a step back. Kanda’s scowl is as dark as any Link has ever seen. “Fucking sprout,” Kanda mutters under his breath.

When he turns away Link sees his cue to follow and takes it, not questioning Kanda’s silent acceptance. Finding Allen laid out on a bed, his limp hand clasped in Johnny’s, is both a step up and one down from the last time Link saw him, trussed up in seals and starving himself.

His eyes are closed, his skin has darkened and his shirt lies open, feathers spilling from the wound in his gut.

“Do none of you have any medical sense at all?” Link curses under his breath. Johnny jerks awake with a squeak and Kanda snarls.

“His innocence is keeping him alive.”

“Well it wouldn’t have to if one of you sewed the damn thing shut.” Link hope’s he’s right about that. He has some training, enough for the field and his missions should he need it. Why the bleeding hell he’s sitting here with an exorcist and a member of the science division who are incapable of that much sense is beyond him. Don’t they train them at all?

He’s watched all this time. Now so are they. He decides then and there that it’s his turn to act. Allen’s wound is a bloody mess by the time he’s finished. Johnny’s face is pale, and Kanda’s is set in a resolute frown. It’s a frown that cannot hide his concern. Link wonders how he’s never noticed. Perhaps he has noticed and this is something new: Kanda Yuu, concerned for another.

“You know why I’m here,” Link says to him. “Why are you?”

“I’m the one who woke it up,” Kanda tells him straight, not even dignifying the Fourteenth with more than an object’s standing. It is concern he saw, Link realizes. Maybe the same as him. He wasn’t supposed to be connected like this, or concerned, or anything so complicated. He wasn’t supposed to be anything more than an observer.

Kanda Yuu wasn’t supposed to be anything more than an exorcist, and look how that turned out.

“He’ll come through,” Johnny says. His voice wavers, and his hands tighten over Allen’s, but his shoulders are straight and his gaze steady. “He’ll make it through for sure. We’ll keep calling until he finds his way back.”

And then it’s the three of them watching in this tiny hotel at the back end of no-town. Watching, waiting, and hoping.

The hoping is new. Link isn’t certain he likes it. 

\-----

When Allen finally wakes it feels like a month has passed. It’s really less than a week, and Link can see from the moment Allen opens his eyes that he is confused. The battle isn’t won, that not-quite-right sense still lingers upon him, but he’s awake. He’s Allen.

He sees Kanda first and snarls on instinct, the snarl fading into weary relaxation and the softest of smiles.

Then he sees Link and that smile fades into a mix of gaping horror and relief. The tears that fill his eyes are desperately thankful. Link knows it isn’t right. He shouldn’t mean enough to Allen for that, but somehow he does. He bends over and ruffles Allen’s hair, feels him fall limp into the blankets and sees him smile. “Wait just a bit,” Link finds himself saying. “I have a new pie I’ve been meaning to bake.”

Kanda’s lip curls, his eyes sharp as Link leaves the room. The grip on his sword is white-knuckled and tight. Link hears Allen laugh, his voice high and relieved. He hears Kanda snarl at him, ask him what’s so funny. Johnny passes Link in the hall, his footsteps picking up at the sound of laughter. He stops at the door. “Oh,” he says. “Hah, if I didn’t know better, I’d think he was jealous.”

Link doesn’t know who he means, so he puts it out of his head as best he can and focuses on his promise. Pie is a simple, mundane sort of thing. A silly promise. He knows Allen will like it anyway. He wonders when he started to care about something like that. 

\-----

Three days later Allen is sitting up, bored and he’s growing antsy. They’ve played cards more times than Link can count and he’s won every match. Every strange noise makes him flinch; a few times he’s summoned Crown Clown to him. Link knows the signs immediately. It was only three months, but Allen’s been on his own too long now, with no one to watch his back. Link’s seen veteran Crows do that, the hyper-vigilance. Exorcists too.

Johnny steps out, a grin on his face as he tips his glasses. They need supplies, food at least. They’ve been lucky that as of yet the akuma don’t seem to have noticed Allen’s presence.

“We have an understanding,” is all Allen will say of it. Link isn’t certain whether Allen thinks he’s protecting them, or if he doesn’t really know more than that. At the very least Allen’s wound is healing. It’s neatly scabbed over, no longer killing him and drawing on the energy of his innocence and the Noah in his heart to keep him alive. It’s no wonder, Link thinks, that the Fourteenth has been so close this whole time, if that wound has been left unattended.

It’s the wound of an innocence blade, it’s no wonder that it has taken so long to heal, as Allen’s Noah half rejects its touch. Perhaps that it is now is a sign that the Fourteenth has, indeed, subsided temporarily. He’s still looming over them, but for now he is quiet.

He. It’s easier to see the Fourteenth as more than a disease when he isn’t killing someone Link has come to care for.

Kanda tosses his cards on the bed, snarls something over how he can’t be bothered to play if all Allen will do is cheat. Allen laughs. Link thinks that Kanda has indulged him in a few more games than can be considered simply “bothering.”

Link stands from his seat at Allen’s side and places his cards more gently on the bedspread. “I will see about lunch.”

As he turns to leave a hand catches his, pulls him back with surprising speed and strength. Link is startled as he turns, finds Allen staring up at him, flushed with embarrassment, his eyes startled-wide as if he didn’t intend the gesture.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and the smile on his face is so false an infant could see it. “I don’t know why I did that.”

Hyper-vigilant, terrified and hiding it deep. Link’s heart twists.

“Let him go beansprout,” Kanda says. “He’ll be back soon.”

Link isn’t certain if it is Allen’s own trust, or Kanda’s resolute confidence that finally allows Allen to let go of his sleeve. How long has Allen been alone, battling the demon in his head, the akuma chasing him, with no one he can trust at his back? They were all fools, Link thinks, letting him run like that. They let him sacrifice himself, and if they let this go on no doubt he’d succeed some day.

Link meets Kanda’s eyes, that steel-blue resolve. His free hand finds Allen’s, tightens over his fingers and squeezes. “Observing you is my job,” he tells Allen, without looking away. “Don’t think you can escape me so easily.”

When he leaves he hears Allen sigh. He makes certain to return as soon as he can. 

\-----

They leave as soon as Allen is strong enough. They can’t linger long anywhere, really, if they’re to remain safe. Link has no doubt the other Noah can track them as they please. They’ve done nothing thus far, or at least nothing that he has noticed. They’ll come when they will; there’s no point in dwelling on it. The Order is searching for them, though. They’ve enemies on all sides, so long as they choose to chase after Allen. So long as they choose to guard his back.

He and Kanda have come to that much of an impasse. Without words, they understand each other. They have their own reasons, ones that aren’t the business of the other, but they’re here because Allen has drawn them in, wrapped them up in his charm and his deeds and because they know he needs it. He needs someone to guard his back, so that he remembers what he’s fighting for.

Neither he, nor Kanda liked him much, or so Link tells himself. Well, it’s not true and he knows that. It doesn’t matter if it’s true or not, pretending they didn’t like him from the beginning, because they’re both here anyway.

Johnny’s here too. Link wonders that he isn’t more surprised at that, but then he thinks it all makes sense. The Fourteenth should have chosen some worthless host that no one would care for, because this one draws people to him all too well. Allen’s too bright for that sort of burden, so it’s no real surprise at all that Johnny is here with them.

He has a strange smile on his face sometimes, while he’s watching them. Link isn’t sure what to think about it. Actually, Link thinks maybe it’s better if he doesn’t. 

\-----

They’re in an ancient cabin, abandoned in the forests beyond a town so small it isn’t even on their map. Link thinks he should be a little more worried when Johnny offers to go into that town for supplies. On his own, he insists. He’ll be perfectly fine, and they need their rest, and isn’t Allen the one they’re after anyway?

Allen is sleeping. His dreams are troubled, have been since the three of them found him, even since he awakened mostly whole. Johnny smiles down at him, pats his head and it’s a little sad. “Don’t worry, Allen,” he whispers as Allen sleeps. “I’ll be back soon.”

Allen shivers beneath his blankets.

Link steps out of the cabin briefly, the cool air soothing his racing mind. He closes his eyes and listens to the chirping birds above.

There’s a scream and a thump, a pained cry and Link dashes back inside, only to find Kanda’s arms around Allen’s thin chest holding him tight. There’s a grim scowl on his face. Allen’s arm is glowing an angry red beneath his shirt sleeve. Kanda’s fingers are in Allen’s hair. Allen’s eyes snap open. He breathes in, sharp and desperate and flails, only to find himself pinned tight. His glowing arm hangs limp as if he can’t move it properly.

Link slides in close, not even thinking. His fingers grip Allen’s chin tight. “Allen, it’s us. Kanda and myself. We’re here.”

Allen’s breath settles, his eyes focus. He sags, limp in Kanda’s arms, and laughs. “I’m okay.”

“You’re not, you idiot,” Kanda mutters from behind him. “You think we don’t know what this is?”

Allen freezes, stares forward. Link’s fingers sooth over his chin, along his jaw. “This isn’t the first dream you’ve woken from,” he says. “It’s not our first either.”

When Allen jerks his head around to stare at Kanda, Kanda reluctantly nods. His gaze finds a distant corner of the room and his lip curls, but he nods.

Allen frowns. “I know that. I know, but I— It’s only a dream. I’m all right.”

Kanda rolls his eyes. Link wishes it were that simple.

Link doesn’t know what he’s doing. He doesn’t know why he does it then, or why Allen lets him, or hell, why Kanda lets him, but his fingers curl against the line of Allen’s jaw. He leans forward, presses his lips to Allen’s, and feels his gasp. He feels Kanda’s grip tighten between them. When he pulls back, he doesn’t expect Allen to lunge for him, the rough red scale of his left arm pulling Link’s braid so he can’t escape. Allen kisses like he’s hungry, like he’s desperate and this will never happen again. Kanda makes a noise of protest. He pulls away and finds himself trapped as Allen’s human arm grips his own tightly.

“I’m all right,” Allen says, a smile on his lips as he and Link part. “Really.” His gaze finds Kanda’s behind him. He presses back against Kanda’s chest. “I’m not perfect, I’m not well, but I’m all right.”

Link meets Kanda’s eyes, glances down at the grip Allen has on his hair, on Kanda’s arm, and then meet’s Kanda’s gaze again. He can see Kanda resisting, but it’s a half-hearted resistance. Allen’s hold on them both is quite clear.

Could you share? Link asks silently in that gaze.

Kanda’s gaze falls to the curve of Allen’s neck, something possessively hot in his eyes. When he looks up again, it’s as if he’s asking Link the very same thing. Could you?

“Do we have a choice?” Link asks aloud.

Allen’s confused noise is muffled between them.

Kanda laughs. It’s strange.

Well, Link thinks, he’s already decided he isn’t simply going to watch anymore. He certainly doesn’t intend to now.

“Is this what you want, beansprout?” Kanda asks.

“Allen,” Allen reminds him, but it’s half-hearted at best. “Yes.”

There are no questions about who’s done what, what they expect from this, what this is and where it might go. They just sort of know, or maybe it doesn’t matter. They fall into each other, awkward bumps and jostling and touching. Kanda nibbles Allen’s throat and thinks of course the fool would wear his heart on his sleeve as much here as he always does. Allen breaths into their touches, soft sounds from his lips that sound surprised with each and every brush as if even the ones before can’t convince him this is really happening. Those sounds beg for more, plead with them greedily. He isn’t shy about it, and Kanda thinks he’s one of the few who wouldn’t expect him to be.

Link smooths the wispy white locks of Allen’s hair back from his face and brushes soft kisses against his lips, gentle until Allen’s hand is tangled so tight in his hair that he takes the hint and takes what Allen is offering in his parted lips. Their tongues slide. Allen’s soft breaths become hums and gasps between their kisses. Link thinks he should have seen this sooner, this simple open desire Allen displays for them. He’s been watching Allen so closely it’s foolish that he hasn’t.

Link’s fingers find the lacing of Allen’s tie as Kanda’s find the buttons of his shirt. The pair of them are clever with their hands; even falling into Allen’s warmth that skill doesn’t fail them. Bare-chested, the wound at Allen’s side is a stark reminder that they still need to be careful with him. Or it would be, but Allen doesn’t seem to want to let them. He arches back against Kanda, lifts his knee between Link’s parted thighs and coaxes them closer.

Kanda groans. His fingers fumble on the buttons of Allen’s trousers. Link crushes his lips against Allen’s, pushing him deeper into Kanda’s embrace, growing hard against Allen’s thigh. Between the two of them they strip Allen down to his stockings, fingers dragging against his snow-pale skin. It’s gone pale again, Link notices. He hasn’t really noticed, not for real, since Allen woke. It’s no longer that strange, death-gray dark of a Noah. It’s really Allen here with them, kissing him so desperately, his fingers tangled with Kanda’s and his cock hard between his legs.

Link watches Kanda’s fingers curl around Allen’s dick, watches Allen’s hips jerk, his mouth part and his eyes fall closed. He’s shivering in Kanda’s arms.

Over Allen’s shoulder, Kanda’s gaze finds Links. The curl of his lips is amused, a smirk and an offer. He palms Allen’s cock until he’s trembling, whimpering delicious, warm, wanting sounds between them. Link would laugh. Instead he returns Kanda’s sharp grin and bows his head.

His hands grip Allen’s hips tight. Allen’s hand in his hair has loosened, distracted as he is by Kanda’s touch. He’s even more distracted, then, by Link’s mouth on his dick, his tongue lapping the sensitive skin. Kanda grinds against Allen’s ass. He shifts Allen just enough to draw his hand between them. Link watches him awkwardly shift his trousers down his hips. He waits, nuzzling Allen’s cock, until Kanda has settled again, and then takes Allen into his mouth as deep as he can manage, stroking the remaining length of him with his free hand.

Allen’s shout is muffled by Kanda’s hand over his lips. Allen groans instead, his tongue lapping Kanda’s fingers. Link hears a sharp click, starts for a moment, but then huffs an amused laugh. Kanda’s hand, now free to wander he pleases, is rubbing between Allen’s thighs, wet and slippery. He wrist is caught a little awkwardly beneath Allen’s ass, but it doesn’t seem to trouble him any. Link pulls back, spreads Allen’s willing legs, his hand caressing Allen’s dick, so that he can watch Kanda press two slick fingers into him.

Allen tenses. Kanda kisses him. Their kiss is more like a war, lips and teeth and tongue and Allen pressing down against Kanda’s fingers as Kanda fucks them into him. Link has a fantastic view as Allen’s hand lifts and tangles in Kanda’s hair. Allen pulls Kanda’s ponytail free and Kanda doesn’t even seem to care. He seems to care even less when that rough red hand grips tight. A soft growl echoes from his throat. He presses another slick finger into Allen.

Not one to be ignored, Link tongues the crease of Allen’s shaking thighs, nibbles the skin, and then takes him deep again. Link fumbles the buttons of his own trousers open, takes his dick, aching with the scene before him, in hand and jerks himself hard.

“I’m going to fuck you, beansprout.” Kanda hisses against Allen’s teeth.

“Now,” Allen growls back, between gasps. 

Link leans back so that Kanda can shift Allen’s hips up and back. Allen’s free hand catches in Link’s fingers against his thigh as Kanda presses into him. Kanda buries his face against Allen’s shoulder, moaning. They lay still, Kanda’s fingers tight on Allen’s hips, Allen gasping for air. Allen swears quietly under his breath, completely uncharacteristic and, Link discovers, utterly hot.

Kanda moves, grinds himself into Allen’s ass. Allen tugs Link forward between his thighs, twines his arms around Link’s shoulders as he fucks himself back on Kanda’s dick. His fingers join Link’s on Link’s dick. It’s all a little disjointed. Link is unbalanced in Allen’s arms. The pair of them are just a little too heavy for Kanda to really thrust and so he grinds instead, but that’s enough to draw hot, gasping whimpers from Allen’s throat as he and Link trade filthy wet kisses between them. Allen’s fingers are just a little too tight but Link doesn’t care. It’s good enough he doesn’t care at all. They’re wrecked and rough and falling into each other.

Kanda bites down against Allen’s throat. Link twists his fist over Allen’s dick. Allen cries out against Link’s lips and comes between them, his body a shuddering wreck. Link thrusts himself into the tunnel of Allen’s hand and brings himself off to the sight of Kanda burying himself in Allen’s body and letting go. It’s a good thing the bed and their blankets were old already. They’ve made a mess of them and none of them have the energy to move far. Link thoughtfully rolls off of the pair of them. Kanda half-shoves Allen to the side and curls around him, a possessive hand in his hair. Allen winces, whimpers and squirms against the blankets. His pale eyes blink open, and he smiles. He leans over, presses a soft kiss to Link’s chin, then turns himself over and does the same to Kanda, shifting Kanda’s possessive touch around him as he moves. He tangles his legs with Kanda’s Link can see his smile turn wicked as he moves.

“Next time, I want both of your clothes off.”

Next time. Allen is grinning, tangled between them, his pale skin aglow in the fading daylight. All Link can think is “next time,” an echo of Allen’s resolute words. Said so certainly, as if Allen knows it will happen, without any shadow of a doubt.

Next time.

Half promise, half tease.

“Like hell we’re going anywhere,” Kanda mutters into Allen’s hair.

Link presses himself along Allen’s bare back and thinks Kanda’s right. They’re not.

[An hour later Johnny walks in to exactly what he’s been expecting for a week. He smiles, lights a candle and opens a book and thinks he’ll wait up. Someone has to make sure those three stay in one piece.]


End file.
